Wednesday Watch: MUST-READ New Releases For 6/27/12

Wednesday Watch: MUST-READ New Releases For 6/27/12

The Comic-Con countdown is on only two weeks and a couple days before fans, creators, Hollywood types and media descend en masse (and we mean "en masse") onto downtown San Diego.

And that's not all that's going on: Amazing Spider-Man is out in just two weeks, and The Dark Knight Rises on July 20. It's a busy period.

But never too busy for your regularly scheduled weekly New Comic Book Day, and this Wednesday brings the graphic novel debut from a celebrity chef, a major movie tie-in from Marvel, an indie legend's latest and a lot more. Click "start here" in the upper-left corner to see our picks for 10 new and noteworthy books out on June 27.

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MAGIC: THE GATHERING THE SPELL THIEF #1

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IDW's latest Magic: The Gathering series re-teams writer Matt Forbeck and artist Martín Cóccolo, who worked on the publisher's previous miniseries based on the perennially popular collectible card game.

The Spell Thief also continues in the tradition that may be the biggest lure of all for Magic fans: Each issue comes polybagged with an exclusive, playable card.

FATALE #6

So why not channel that energy in a positive matter and check out Fatale, his Image Comics series with frequent collaborator Sean Phillips that starts a new arc this week. Based on comments in his Comics Reporter interview, it looks that creator-owned comics is what he's focusing the bulk of his energy on in the future, so if you haven't yet, this seems as good a time as any to take a look at Brubaker's non-superhero material.

ATOMIC ROBO: THE FLYING SHE-DEVILS OF THE PACIFIC #1

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Just from hearing the title "Flying She-Devils of the Pacific," you might be able to guess that it's the latest volume in the distinctive Atomic Robo canon from Brian Clevinger and Scott Wegener.

Here's the official description of the five-issue miniseries, which starts this week: "Atomic Robo falls in with a band of air pirates in the uncharted waters of the South Pacific. Together they have to find a way to stop a forgotten World War Two super weapon from devastating the North American continent."

BATMAN: THE DARK KNIGHT #10

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OK, just look at that cover. Spooky, right?

But the issue is notable for reasons beyond a creepy cover: It's also the first written by new series scribe Gregg Hurwitz, who recently wrote the acclaimed Penguin: Pain and Prejudice miniseries.

In Dark Knight, Hurwitz is starting off with the Scarecrow. "One of the things that I've liked in Dark Knight is the freedom to write an arc that's very propulsive and thriller geared, with a lot of action," Hurwitz told Newsarama. "It also is very, very intensely psychological."

HIT-GIRL #1

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Hit-Girl, the breakout character of Kick-Ass, gets her own five-issue miniseries from Mark Millar and John Romita Jr. (the same creative team behind both Kick-Ass volumes).

The series shows Hit-Girl returning to a normal-ish life, but, of course, not for long, with lots of hyper-violence sure to ensue. Not depicted: Millar hoping that Chloë Grace Moretz doesn't get too old to reprise the role in a second Kick-Ass film.

FATIMA: THE BLOOD SPINNERS #1

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Revered cartoonist Gilbert Hernandez best known for his work with his brother Jaime on Love and Rockets introduces a new series at Dark Horse this week, Fatima: The Blood Spinners.

It's Hernandez's take on the zombie genre, about a recreational drug that turns users into the walking undead. Bonus: Peter Bagge drew a variant cover to issue #1.

BEFORE WATCHMEN: NITE OWL #1

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The fourth Before Watchmen series of June premieres this week, Nite Owl from J. Michael Straczynski, Andy Kubert and Joe Kubert.

The issue might hold interest for who's working on it as much as what's appearing on the pages: JMS has made some of the most pointed remarks regarding the controversial series thus far, telling Newsarama, "Everyone in the entertainment business gets crappy contracts when we start out, and into the middle of our careers. It's the nature of the business. You incrementally improve your deal over time, which is why even though I had a crappy [Babylon 5] contract, I continued to work with Warners, knowing that at each new step I would improve my deal until now, it's pretty much at the top of what the industry can offer.

"Alan feels he got screwed, and he's entitled to feel that way; nobody else can get a vote on how we feel. But I would point to folks like Bob Kane, and Siegel and Shuster, and Jack Kirby, who all were screwed much more deeply and viscerally and in more costly terms. So that does kind of put it in perspective a bit. Doesn't make any of this right, or proper, or appropriate... but there needs to be some sense of proportion."

On the other side of the spectrum: Alan Moore's League of Extraordinary Gentlemen: Century #3 - 2009 is out this week from Top Shelf.

DINOSAURS VS. ALIENS

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Though it's only been a year since Cowboys & Aliens disappointed at the box office, creatures from outer space are once again showing up in a time period you wouldn't expect to see them in except this time it's many millions of years earlier.

The graphic novel Dinosaurs vs. Aliens was conceived by Men in Black director Barry Sonnenfeld and written by comic book superstar Grant Morrison (art from Mukesh Singh & Liquid Studios), and, unsurprisingly given those involved, it already has some multimedia heat behind it: DvA will be appearing as a motion comic on Yahoo! starting soon.

AMAZING SPIDER-MAN #688

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Spider-Man is fighting the Lizard on the big screen in Amazing Spider-Man. And he's also fighting the Lizard in comic books this week in Amazing Spider-Man. Sometimes the world just makes sense.

New story arc "No Turning Back," by Dan Slott and Giuseppe Camuncoli, starts this week, and it'll be on stands for folks to peruse right after seeing the film, the type of well-conceived synergy Marvel pulled off earlier this year with Thanos appearing in Avengers Assemble the week after the Avengers movie. (Keep in mind that Amazing Spider-Man the movie comes out on July 3 a Tuesday, so this is the closest New Comic Book Day to the release date.)

GET JIRO!

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You might not have expected celebrity chef Anthony Bourdain to write a Vertigo graphic novel, but it has happened. And as of this week, it's here.

The No Reservations personality is behind Get Jiro!, an original hardcover graphic novel co-written by Bourdain and Joel Rose, with art from Langdon Foss. It's set in the future, stars a renegade sushi chef, and has been dubbed, "a bloody culinary war of epic proportions" all of which basically sounds like everything you'd hope for from an Anthony Bourdain-written comic book.